"This time, no one was killed – only 49 wounded, five seriously and
one woman fighting for her life. At 4:20 pm Israel Time, a lone gunmen,
later identified as a member of the Aqsa Brigades, the military arm of
Yasser Arafat’s Fatah, yelled “Allah Is Great!” and opened up on Jerusalem’s
busiest section. He sprayed bullets on a bus, several bus stops, a dress
shop, a kiosk and passers-by hurrying past in heavy rain. The terrorist
emptied his first magazine, but before he could reload, police patrolling
the area on high terror alert leapt forward and after a short chase cut
him down.

The attack occurred only yards away from last year’s pizzeria atrocity,
in which 15 Israelis died.The assailant was quickly identified over al Jazeera TV and Hizballah’s
al Manar station as Said Ramadan from the West Bank village of Tel. The
incident came hours after Israel forces went into Nablus, located a Hamas
laboratory with enough detonators, fuses and explosives to manufacture
100 bombs of the type used by the group’s suicide attackers. Five wanted
Hamas activists, all listed as senior operatives of the group’s military
arm, Izzadin Qassam and responsible for assorted terrorist attacks in the
last six weeks, died defending the facility. Four Israeli troops were slightly
wounded.

A Hamas spokesman later vowed all-out war against Israel until its
“1967 and 1948 occupations are ended”.Incoming military intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Aharon Zeevi (Farkas)
warned the Knesset foreign affairs and defense committee that the most
dangerous wave of terror attacks was just ahead. In his opinion, nothing
would avail to halt Arafat’s headlong terrorist offensive - even if Israel
offered to withdraw to its 1967 borders, gave up all the holy places and
consented to the return of 1948 refugees.

This is first public confirmation by an Israeli intelligence officer
that Arafat is bent on nothing less than Israel’s defeat and destruction.

Such dire prognoses account for the preventive tactic employed as
of this week by prime minister Ariel Sharon, to systematically root out
terrorists and emasculate Arafat’s military resources. Chief of staff,
Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz has dubbed these tactics “focused counter-terror
operations.”

The first target was the West Bank Palestinian town of Tulkarm, entered
for the first time Sunday by a whole Israeli brigade, complete with tanks,
APCs, engineers and helicopters. After rounding up 20 suspects, the contingent
pulled out early Monday, just as a second force entered another West Bank
town, Nablus.Tulkarm’s refugee camp, Noor Shams, a notorious hotbed of Tanzim
militia terrorist activity, was targeted in between the two for Monday
night January 21, but Sharon pulled the operation at the eleventh hour.
He was confronted with a sniping barrage at home from the opposition, the
media and his own government, chiefly from his Labor party partners. Sharon
did not let defense minister Binyamin ben Eliezer know about the change
of plan. Since his election as Labor party leader, ben Eliezer’s loyalties
have become complicated.In fact one of the reasons Sharon called off the Noor Shams operation
was the declaration by deputy defense minister, Dalia Rabin-Pelesof, who
took to the airwaves to declare that the Sharon government and the army
command had no strategy except for blindly hitting out in all directions.
Her Labor colleagues echoed her in the Knesset foreign affairs and defense
committee. Opposition leader Yossi Sarid then accused the Sharon government
of promoting terrorism.

Sharon did not answer them. But, privately, he wondered out loud
to his aides why Ms. Rabin, one of whose jobs is to pilot the government’s
strategic policy, bothered to stay in the government if her opinion of
its performance was so low.

DEBKAfile’s political sources note that what really aggravates his
opponents is Sharon’s confident air, produced by the strongest backing
any Israeli prime minister has ever received from Washington. He knows,
and so do they, that he is safe in pursuing his siege tactics against Arafat
for as long as he does not take it all the way and eliminate the Palestinian
leader.

This US support is not personally-motivated. Sharon is one of the
lynchpins of the Bush administration’s projected post-Afghanistan global
redesign for the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, Asia Minor, Central and
Southwest Asia, while Arafat is viewed as an impediment. Washington therefore
cheers Sharon’s efforts to undermine the Palestinian leader, as long as
he treads with care and is closely coordinated with the US government –
which means not sending the Israeli army into a bloody trap in a Palestinian
refugee camp.

With George W. Bush looking firm on a course that ought to take him
to a second term as president, Ariel Sharon can also afford to feel optimistic
about his chances in Israel’s next general election next year - for as
long as he watches where he is treading."